5.  The applicant was born in 1952 and lives in the town of Kamyshin in the Volgograd Region.
6.  The applicant was employed as an expert in the local Forensic Examinations Service. In 2000 he was accused of having been negligent in the discharge of his professional duties and was dismissed from his post. In March 2001 he was charged with having given a deliberately false expert opinion.
7.  On 30 May 2001 the Kamyshin Town Court of the Volgograd Region convicted the applicant as charged and sentenced him to one year of correctional labour coupled with a fine amounting to 20% of his income. Under the Amnesty Act 2000 the applicant was absolved from serving his sentence.
8.  On 7 August 2001 the Volgograd Regional Court overturned the judgment and discontinued the proceedings for want of corpus delicti. The court held that the offence required express malice, which had not been established on the facts of the case. The Rules on the Forensic Medical Examination of Corpses allowed the expert to determine the scope and methods of examination on the basis of ministerial instructions. The applicant’s failure to conduct a thorough corpse examination resulted from having chosen “the wrong scope and methods”.
9.  On a supervisory request from the Volgograd Region Acting Prosecutor, on 21 September 2001 the Presidium of the Regional Court quashed both judgments for insufficient substantiation and remitted the case to the prosecutor for a new investigation. It held as follows:
“Ruling on the discontinuation of the case, the [appeal] court referred to the Rules on forensic examination of corpse, annexed to the Decree 407 of 10 December 1996... According to paragraph 1.11 of the Rules, ‘the scope and method of the expert examination of a corpse is determined by the expert, taking account of the aim and objectives of the examination, the requirements of substantiation and objectivity of the expert’s conclusions, directions of the normative instructions and guidelines.’
So, the appeal court ruled that the insufficiency of the corpse examination carried out by the applicant ...had been due to his wrong choice as regards the scope and method of examination...
[T]he case file did not contain all normative documents regarding the process of an expert examination.
The investigating authority and the court concluded that [the applicant] had acted in gross disregard of the above Rules, only on the basis of excerpts from these Rules. This did not allow for a thorough examination of the case...”
The prosecutor was present at the hearing and made submissions to the Presidium of the Regional Court. According to the applicant, neither he nor his counsel was apprised of this hearing and consequently could not attend it.
10.  In the resumed proceedings, on 22 May 2002 the applicant was convicted as charged and sentenced to one year of correctional labour coupled with a fine amounting to 10% of his income. Under the Amnesty Act 2000 the applicant was absolved from serving his sentence.
11.  On 9 July 2002 the Regional Court set aside the judgment of 22 May 2002 and discontinued the proceedings as time-barred.
12.  On a supervisory review request from the President of the Regional Court, on 20 September 2002 the Presidium of the Regional Court quashed the appeal judgment and remitted the case to the appeal court. The supervisory instance court stated that the defendant’s consent should have been obtained for a discontinuation due to the expiry of the limitation period.
13.  After a fresh appeal hearing on 15 October 2002, the Regional Court upheld the judgment of 22 May 2002.
14.  On 21 March 2006 the Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation lodged a supervisory review request with a view to quashing the judgment of 15 October 2002. On 26 April 2006 the Supreme Court of Russia quashed the judgments of 20 September and 15 October 2002. The Supreme Court indicated that the Code of Criminal Procedure in force since 1 July 2002 did not allow supervisory review of a court decision to discontinue a criminal case. In addition, the Supreme Court stated that the Regional Court had mistakenly considered that the applicant’s consent to the discontinuation of the case had been necessary. The judgment of 9 July 2002 was thereby reinstated in legal force.
15.  It appears that the applicant appealed against the judgment of 21 March 2006. On 7 June 2007 a judge of the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal.